Hound Dog

Big Mama Thornton (1953). Excerpt from "The 50 Songs that Gave Birth to Rock and Roll"

Topping out at 350 pounds, Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton cut an impressive figure on the blues landscape. Born in Alabama in 1926, Thornton’s first and biggest hit would also be the first independent production for songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

The latter two gentlemen were already on their way to becoming among the most important songwriters of the rock and roll era (thanks to Wilbert Harrison’s 1952 take on their “Kansas City”).

But over the course of its life cycle, “Hound Dog” would become their single most consequential work.

Influenced by the likes of Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie, Big Mama Thornton honed her chops as a gospel-turned-blues belter with Sammy Green’s Hot Harlem Revue. But as blues transformed into R&B in the late 1940s, Thornton embraced the genre’s more aggressive and sexually confrontational predilections. Thornton came to meet Leiber and Stoller while working with star R&B drummer and bandleader, Johnny Otis.

In their very first session as leading producers, the already-successful songwriters encouraged Thornton to raunch up the vocals, which she did with inimitable authority. Behind her, a band of ace musicians is anchored by the reliable Mr. Otis on drums and the smoking-hot Pete Lewis on guitar.

A blues tune with a backbeat, but absent a saxophone, “Hound Dog” sounded like something altogether different from R&B or traditional blues. By the time Thornton’s recording descends into chaotic canine howling and yelping, a new sound has been born.

“Hound Dog” became a #1 R&B hit, topping the charts for seven weeks and selling just under a million copies in 1953. Thornton was paid a pittance for her work, as were Leiber and Stoller. While the former was never compensated, and died with little to her name but alcoholism at age 57 in 1984, Leiber and Stoller would ultimately make out like bandits when Elvis Presley recorded the song in 1956.

“Hound Dog” would become a 10-million unit seller for Presley, pulling off the then-unprecedented feat of simultaneously topping the pop, country, and R&B charts that year. It remains Presley’s single best-selling song to date and among the most representative songs of the rock and roll genre.

See the full list of 50 Songs that Gave Birth to Rock and Roll